People who never make peace with their past never find the grace to move successfully into their future.If you want to change your life for the better, you must settle this fact in your mind, once and for all: it’s all about the now!Begin to see yourself as a person who has the ability to let things go and to move on.See yourself as someone who has the maturity to forgive, the perception to rightly discern what has happened to you in the past, and the vision to embrace the future.See yourself as one who can look back over the course of events of his/her life – both the good and the bad ones – and not want to change anything.See yourself thankful for your life.

Remember, it’s not what has happened to you, but what has happened in you, that has shaped you into the person that you now are.You may have been victimized, but you don’t have to be a victim – or at least you don’t have to live like one.You may have been betrayed, but you don’t have to be bitter.Betrayal is what someone did to you.Bitterness is what you do to yourself.You may be alone, but you don’t have to be lonely.Your vision determines the effect of your circumstances on your life.One thing is for sure, you really can put closure on any pain from your past by seeing how blessed you are now.Whatever may have happened didn’t kill you – you’re still here, so you might as well live!

Counting your blessings is truly an exercise in empowerment.You should make a mental list every day of the things for which you are grateful and review that list when you are tempted to start seeing things in a negative light.Self-pity is a useless emotion.It doesn’t make you feel better about yourself, it doesn’t make someone else see the error of their ways, it doesn’t change anything, and it doesn’t glorify God.Feeling sorry for yourself, even if you have good reason to do so, is utterly pointless.Nothing good or important or constructive ever comes from it.Giving in to it just causes you to spin your wheels on the road of life.

If you are nursing old wounds from the past that should have healed years ago, it’s time to move on.Some things may leave a scar, but they don’t have to stay infected.They don’t have to hurt anymore if you don’t want them to.You can stop talking about the pain and can begin to see the good and positive.You can embrace the strength and wisdom that you have acquired and can even help someone else through their healing process.The more thankful you become, the more you will have for which to be thankful and the less you will want to concentrate on past hurts.You can change your focus.You can change your life by changing the way you see things.

If you want to live in the kind of peace that prevents you from developing a stomach ulcer or hypertension – the peace that allows you to really sleep well at night – you must learn how to properly see yourself. Developing the proper self-image includes learning to forgive yourself and making a quality decision to stop blaming yourself and mentally beating yourself up for your mistakes and perceived failures. If you constantly bombard your spirit with negative thoughts of regret and self-accusation, those thoughts will eventually mutate into a kind of self-loathing that is completely counterproductive to your having any real degree of success in your life.